David Schwimmer

RATED: Sunday's season finale of ABC's Desperate Housewives attracted a record 30.3 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings. The new high beats the numbers for the Nov. 28 episode (about Mrs. Huber's death) by some 3 million. Even so, shows that did even better during this Sweeps period also included season finale for CBS's CSI (30.7 million) and the series finale of Everybody Loves Raymond (32.9 million). As for Desperate Housewives, the hopes are high for season two this fall. Joining the cast as a regular, Variety reports, will be Roger Bart, who this past season occasionally cropped up as pharmacist George Williams, who developed a crush on Bree (Marcia Cross) … and fatally tampered with her husband Rex's pills.

COUNTED: Jamie Foxx's passionate recollection of his late grandmother during his Best Actor acceptance speech for Ray was the Oscar moment most replayed by TiVo digital video recorder customers, the company announced, basing its sample on 10,000 anonymous TiVo households. The second most-popular TiVo moment was Clint Eastwood's Best Picture win for Million Dollar Baby. Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet proved the big TiVo stars of ABC's pre-Oscar show. Blanchett's arrival in a yellow Valentino gown was the most replayed red-carpet moment, followed by Winslet's entrance in a blue Badgley Mischka dress.

CAUTIONED: A California judge gave Tom Sizemore a break Thursday when he let the 43-year-old actor remain free pending his sentencing next month for a probation violation, the Associated Press reports. Sizemore faces up to four and a half years in jail resulting from an altercation with his former girlfriend, onetime Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. The judge let Sizemore stay out of jail, despite the fact that the troubled actor has failed seven drug tests, twice admitted methamphetamine use, and failed to show up for drug testing all within the past month. But the jurist had some harsh words for the actor: "There are two ways for you to go," Judge Antonio Barretto Jr. told Sizemore. "One is to recover. The other is to die."

David Schwimmer has found some new Friends to hang out with. The 37-year-old actor is getting ready to make his directorial debut on the independent romantic comedy Run, Fat Boy, Run, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The theme song promised they would be there for each other – and for 10 years the six stars of Friends truly were. Together they rode the bronco of sudden fame, hung on during a media backlash and tough salary negotiations and supported each other through personal crises, marriages and babies. As the show's May 6 finale approaches, the famous sextet looks back in a new book, Friends ... 'Til The End. In this exclusive excerpt – featuring never-before-seen photos from the set – they open up about the show and each other. Friends, says Jennifer Aniston, has been "like a gift you can't even imagine."
Jennifer AnistonI was 23 years old when we started. Now here we are in our 30s and some of us have been married and some babies have been born. ... What's so weird about this show is that so much of our lives get in there. ... Whether it was a relationship thing or a parental thing, a situation in our lives is somehow always being played out on the show. ... It did feel like I was growing up in front of everybody.

April 1, 2004 NEW DIRECT-ION Now that David Schwimmer has wrapped up his work on Friends, he's taking some time to direct. Schwimmer has already been tapped to head up a new TV pilot called Home & Hardware, starring American Pie actress Alyson Hannigan. We hear Schwimmer will also direct the pilot episode of Never Mind Nirvana, about the culture clash that occurs when the parents of a young Indian-American doctor come to live with him and his wife, who is white. But don't give up on Schwimmer the actor just yet: He'll appear in the title role in the indie flick Duane Hopwood, with Janeane Garofalo, due next year.